Vehicles range from automobiles to airplanes require vehicle service such as routine maintenance, vehicle diagnosis or vehicle repair and the like. Vehicle service requires both down time for the vehicles and the customers. Customers tend to be impatient with these down times and demand to know precisely when their vehicles will be ready and how much it will cost. Further, fleet managers also would like to be able to schedule the vehicles for use in the field but must take into account vehicle service down time of the vehicles. Thus, their business demands accuracy in terms of available vehicles so that they are able to schedule properly to meet their customer's delivery deadlines. If they are not kept well-informed as to vehicle service time and costs including unexpected costs, these customers and fleet managers will move their business to another service center without any hesitation.
Customers such as a driver, owner or fleet manager of the vehicle generally arrive at a service center in two ways. 1. Customer drives up to the service center without an appointment. 2. Customer would call a service center or go online to make an appointment. In both instances, the customer would discuss the vehicle service required with a service advisor who would generally estimate the time it would take and cost. However, the estimate will usually be based on the general experience of the service advisor but does not take into account the availability of the technicians including certified technicians that may or may not be available, the availability of the repair bay, or whether the parts needed for the repair are available. Thus, the customer may be informed that he could get his vehicle back the same day but in actuality, the vehicle would not be ready until the next day due to factors that the service advisor did not take into account when he made the estimate.
Thus, a service advisor should have access to all available information in order to provide an accurate vehicle service time and cost estimate and also be kept well informed of any delays in the vehicle service or if unexpected issues arise. Typically, technicians perform vehicle routine maintenance by following a checklist (multi point inspection) or standard service process (e.g. oil change, tire rotation) using paper or electronic devices without any feedback such as being behind schedule for the service being provided. Even with a checklist, it is difficult for a technician to know if he is behind schedule and to what extent. For example, the technician may know at this point in time, he should be at step 10 of the 20 point maintenance inspection instead of step 8 but he might not know how long it would take him to complete steps 11 through 20 in order to update the service advisor or that he may need additional help either in the form of an additional technician (similar credentials) or a specialized technician (master mechanic) in order to complete vehicle routine maintenance. Further, should unexpected repairs be identified during the inspection, the service advisor would need to know the expected repair costs, availability of technicians and any parts as well as the expected time to repair in order to relay that information to the customer for approval. The situation described is even more complex when you consider vehicle diagnostic, which is to ascertain repair procedures since the root cause of the reported symptom has not been identified and therefore the repair is not known. When vehicle diagnostic is performed, the technician will have some basic procedures to follow but at times, the technician will be using his skills and experience to resolve the issue reported. This can take time and be inefficient since the diagnosis may not have been performed previously.
Thus, there is a need for a service ecosystem related to vehicle service that provides accurate estimates for: time to complete, costs, available parts and resources that allow for a service process flow (discussed below) to be optimized. A service advisor or customer would be made aware at all time of the specific details. A customer would approve any work before it is done. Additionally there is a need for a system that can help with vehicle diagnostic learning building on knowledge as collected through different sources.